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Despite being the last digit to come into use in the numerical system, the zero plays a central role in mathematics. During the 2nd century CE, Ptolemy began using a small circle with a long bar above it to symbolize zero. Because it was used alone, not just as a placeholder, this Hellenistic zero was […]

Sambo is a modern martial art and combat sport that was developed to enhance the military's hand-to-hand combat system in the former Soviet Union. In 1938, it was named the official sport of the USSR. Sambo combines a variety of wrestling styles with east Asian martial arts, boxing, and even fencing, from which it derives […]

Buzkashi is a traditional Central Asian team sport in which players on horseback try to grab the carcass of a headless goat or calf and pitch it across a goal line or into a target circle or vat. Although it is known as a popular Afghani sport, Buzkashi began as a sport of the steppes, […]

Audubon was a US ornithologist and artist known for his drawings and paintings of North American birds. After failing in business, he concentrated on compiling his extraordinary four-volume Birds of America, published between 1827 and 1838. Though his bird poses are sometimes unrealistic—the result of painting dead birds wired into position—and some details are inaccurate, […]

After winning an amateur contest at Harlem's Apollo Theater in 1934, Fitzgerald started singing with Chick Webb's big band and soon became its star. She recorded her first hit, "A Tisket-A Tasket," in 1938 and went on to become one of the best-selling vocal recording artists in history and a 14-time Grammy Award winner. In […]

Born in the US and taken to the UK as a child, Joyce became involved with the fascist movement as a teen and fled to Germany before the outbreak of WWII. He remained there throughout the war, broadcasting Nazi propaganda in English from Berlin. He was captured by British soldiers in 1945 and, despite his […]

Located in central East Africa, Tanzania has been inhabited by humans or their ancestors perhaps longer than any other place on Earth, with hominid fossils discovered there dating back over two million years. The country of Tanzania is a more recent development, forming in 1964 with the merger of two newly independent republics—Tanganyika and Zanzibar. […]

Written and composed by French army officer Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle in 1792, La Marseillaise was adopted in 1795 as France's first anthem. Although it was then banned by Napoleon I, Louis XVIII, and Napoleon III, it was restored as France's national anthem in 1879. The evocative lyrics and recognizable tune of La Marseillaise […]

The Hubble Space Telescope is the most sophisticated optical observatory ever placed into orbit around Earth, able to view star material some 10 to 12 billion light years away. Because it is above Earth's obscuring atmosphere, it can obtain images that are much brighter, clearer, and more detailed than ground-based telescope images. Although a defect […]